Author: alicebeckett4

In our digital age, there is a never ending flow of content on the internet and social media. It is too much to take in and process for one person, and that is why we need journalists to do it. To decide what is important, and to make sure we get a balanced and accurate view of the situation. Curation is also a useful tool for journalists to introduce new perspectives and voices in articles.

How do you feel you are progressing with the development of your first articles? What problems have you encountered and solved so far?

I am more or less finished with the first two assignments, and will start working on the third one soon. So I feel like I am progressing quite good. One problem that I encountered was that I didn’t get any replies from my preferred primary sources for one of the articles, so I ended up switching subjects entirely and writing about something else. Other than that I haven’t really had any problems;

Have the workshop tasks helped you to develop the portfolio articles? How?

Yes, they have definitely helped. Mainly to learn the practical aspects, like how to put tweets in WordPress posts and how to use photoshop to create pictures for the instagram slides. These are all things I didn’t knew before.

My first idea was to write an article about Anti-bullying week, since that was going on with various initiatives across the country when I did the research. I started collecting tweets and contacting sources, but never got any reply from the founding organisation so I had to give up that idea and find another one.

I then decided to write about Purple Tuesday, that was the 13th of November. Purple Tuesday was the UKs first accessible shopping day, a campaign that aims to highlight the importance of disabled costumers and the struggles they face when shopping on the high street.

Come up with a list of primary source contacts for your piece. Find their contact details.

Kristine, a spokesperson for the organisation Purple that founded the campaign – info@purpletuesday.org.uk

Holly Scott-Gardner, a woman living with a rare eye condition that affects all aspects of her life, including going shopping. She tweeted of the importance of the campaign under the hashtag #Purpletuesday – holly@catchthesewords.com

Research their backgrounds and the background of the story with secondary sources.

The secondary sources I used, besides embedded tweets from people, was information from the campaigns site: https://purpletuesday.org.uk/

I also used information from a media package with press releases that I found on their website, as well as quotes from the CEO Mike Adams that was provided in the press release.

Another secondary source was Kristine, the spokesperson for Purple, since I got some facts and figures from her that I used in the article.

Interview questions for each source.

Questions for Purple’s spokesperson: Why is Purple Tuesday important? What do you want to accomplish with the campaign? What response have you gotten from the campaign?

Questions for Holly Scott-Gardner: Would you like to tell me about your disability and how it affects your daily life? Why is Purple Tuesday important, both to you and in general? What do you think about the campaign? Do you think it will make a difference? If no, what would it take to make a difference?

Monday 5th of November marked the start for the annual Living Wage Week, a campaign to draw attention to the gap between the Government’s minimum wage and the “real living wage”.

The week long campaign, run by Living Wage foundation, focuses on getting the attention of people and top politicians to spread their message about what they call “the real living wage”. The real living wage is independently calculated every year, based on how much money people actually need in their day to day life.

With the slogan “a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work”, the campaign aims to draw attention to the fact that the current national minimum wage is not enough. Employers can therefore voluntarily sign up to pay the living wage instead, guaranteeing their employees and any sub-contractors higher salaries.

About 4700 employers across the country has signed up to Living Wage. During the week, employers as well as employees and politicians turned to social media to express their opinions about the campaign.

My idea is to write an article about Small Business Saturday, a non-commercial campaign which aims to promote and highlight the UKs 5.7 million small businesses. They visited Leeds the 5th of November as a part of their 25 day long bus tour to promote the campaign.

Come up with a list of primary source contacts for your piece. Find their contact details.

Tom Flynn: What is the purpose of the tour? Why is it important? How many small businesses in Leeds will engage in the day? Last year was the most successful year ever for the campaign with £748 million spent, what are your expectations for this year?

Jo Smedley: Tell me about your business. How many years have you been involved in Small Business Saturday? What does the campaign mean to you? Why is it important?

The main difference between primary and secondary sources is how you collect it. Primary sources is material you gather yourself, for example quotes from interviews that you conducted in person or quotes you have gotten directly via social media or email. Secondary sources on the other hand is something you have not gathered yourself, for example quotes from other articles, background information from social media or reports.

Primary sources are important because they are the essence of journalism. Without primary sources, no one would ever write something new but only copy each other. When you use primary sources in your articles, you introduce new points of view to the reader. Also, primary sources is more reliable than secondary sources. When using secondary sources, it is harder to check the facts and verify the information, and the risk of spreading false information is higher.

The best practice is to use a mix of both primary and secondary sources, but to try and keep secondary sources to a minimum. You should mostly use them as background information, and always make sure to get your own quotes and check the information before publishing.

An increased amount of young people in the UK chooses to avoid alcohol.

More and more young people in the UK are choosing not to drink, new research shows. Rebecca Haselhoff is one of them.

By Alice Nordevik

A recent study from University College London shows that an increased amount of young people in the UK are giving up alcohol. 22-year old Rebecca Haselhoff made the decision to stay sober early.

“I realised quickly that I did not feel good after drinking, psychically or mentally. So I did not want to force it on myself”, she said.

The study, based on the annual Health Survey for England, involved nearly 10.000 people aged 16-24 in England. The results showed that non-drinking increased from 18 per cent in 2005 to 29 per cent in 2015.

Dr Linda Ng Fat, lead author of the study, said that it is becoming more accepted not to drink.

“Increases in non-drinking among young people were found across a broad range of groups, including those living in northern or southern regions of England, among the white population, those in full-time education, in employment and across all social classes and healthier groups,” she said to The Telegraph.

“A culture shift”

Aaron Whittaker has worked as a bartender for the past two years and he recognises the trend.

“On Tuesday nights we have cheap drinks, but we are seeing a big decline in the amount of people coming here. However that might just be a shift in business here, not in general”, he said.

“I think there is a culture shift. People go more towards nightclubs than pubs and bars, and towards doing drugs than drinking”.